Tag Archives: wallpaper

Last week, I showed off the new basement floors. It took us a while to get to the point where we were ready to install the floors. Earlier this Spring we hired out the job of painting the ceiling, installing some crown and doing a final count of paint on the walls. It was probably the best decision we’ve made in a while! (Thanks Jim!)

On the left is where we started (this picture was taken during our home inspection) and the right is where we were when all the painting was done. What a difference right?

Looking back, I almost can’t believe we bought a house with a basement that looked like this! All of that wallpaper! The hideous dark brown molding everywhere! The blue carpet.The hideous wetbar.

Oh, and then when we got the first layer of wallpaper off, we found the second layer… Oh man, then stories this wallpaper must have been able to tell.

The place already looked SO much better after Jim got the crown up. We selected a narrow composite crown molding since our ceilings are low and we needed it to fit between the window molding and the ceiling.

I was really happy that we realized that the ceiling needed painting, as it looked seriously yellow once we had the crown up.

And here it is after Jim got some paint on the ceiling. What a difference right?! Oh we also updated the bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling with inexpensive lights from Ikea. Andy’s dad helped to install them last fall when he was here (thanks Chris!) and although they’re not the most beautiful, they are unobtrusive, inexpensive, and bright!

Like this:

Our basement has wallpaper. Ugly wallpaper, on every single square inch of wall. Heck, they even wallpapered the support beam! (Come on now, really people?) In one spot, as I started peeling the top layer of wallpaper off, I found a second layer of wallpaper.

Behold the tikibar wallpaper:

Those “missing” spots aren’t actually missing. It’s the back of the top layer of paper still sticking to the bottom layer of paper.

So we’ve been working on getting the walls back to basics. And it is officially the bane of my existence! Here’s what I managed to do in 1.75 episodes of the West Wing, last night.

Yup, that’s less than a 6 foot section of wall (as you can see by the beach-towel-turned-drop-cloth). It is SLOW going because the darlings who used to live here didn’t prime the drywall.

As you can tell, I’ve got a fun weekend ahead… What are you planning? Any wallpaper removal tips? I’m using a steamer – which helps to get the wallpaper off without as much damage to the walls as just a spray bottle of hot water and a scraper did, but it takes a LOT of steam, so it takes a LOT of time.